Does Smoking Weed Protect From Cancer?

Cannabis oil is widely used to treat cancer - but could smoking pot prevent the disease from arising?

Highly concentrated cannabis oil is rapidly becoming the go-to cancer cure, but now it turns out even smoking the plant can have preventative effects. According to a new study, long term cannabis smokers were 62% less likely to develop neck and head related cancers than those who did not smoke it.

The Study

The research published in the journal Cancer Prevention Research, was a long term study consisting of just under 1,000 participants - 434 were patients suffering from neck and head related cancers, whilst 547 participants did not. After other substances such as alcohol and tobacco were taken into account, it was found that smoking marijuana at least once a week significantly reduced the risk of developing these cancers when compared to those who did not smoke cannabis.

What is even more interesting is that the results found that those who started smoking weed later in life appeared to have an even smaller risk than those who started at an early age – with those who started smoking between the ages of 15 and 19 having a 47% reduce risk, and those who started smoking over the age of 20 having a 61% reduced risk.

Why neck and head cancer?

For the same reason tobacco smoke increases the risk of these cancers – the smoke is coming into direct contact with those areas. The smoke of cannabis is jam packed full of cannabinoids which have been shown to exhibit strongly anti-tumorous activity. So it makes sense that the throat and head would be the areas to benefit from its strongest protection.

This study is limited to the development of cancers in just those areas. While this is good news, it is important to keep in mind that smoking cannabis has not shown to prevent the growth of cancers in other places, such as lung or breast - even long-term smokers have been reported to develop cancers. The strong curative effect of cannabis oil cannot be compared to smoking, since the high amounts of cannabinoids necessary for the curative effect cannot be consumed by smoking.

And Vaporizing is still better

Although these results are great, it is important to remember that the process of burning cannabis produces a whole cocktail of horrible toxins and tar; and whilst the beneficial compounds of cannabis may act to protect the throat and head, these toxins are still making their way to the lungs and into the body.

This is not a concern when you vaporize. Vaporizing doesn’t involve burning your weed, so none of the toxins are created. It results in a vapour that is not only cleaner, but contains a much higher cannabinoid content.